Over the next six weeks, you're going to have people exhorting you for one reason or another to vote for one of the major candidates for President. I'm going to support Obama, as you know, and paramount among the reasons why I keep saying this is this big, important one: I do not want to be associated, even by simple omission, with McCain supporters. There's a few things that bear repeating about some McCain supporters right now, so I'm going to step on people's feelings again.
They call Barack Obama a "nigger" and joke about Cadillacs in front of the White House and fried chicken and watermelon state dinners. They laugh about how quickly he will be assassinated, and ask if we can't let James Earl Ray out of prison to do the job, apparently not realizing the fucker died a decade ago. They send each other racist texts and emails, including the one where a chimpanzee eating a banana morphs into Obama while the theme from "The Jeffersons" ("We're moving on up") plays. This is not the media or the candidates "playing the race card," these are average racist Americans. They are voting for McCain because they think black people are lazy and shiftless and irresponsible and untrustworthy, and because they are uncomfortable voting for a black man. They see him as alien and unknown, and they dislike him for qualities extant on his skin, instead of even bothering to consider what's beneath.
Hating a person for what they are instead of for who they are is degrading and dehumanizing, and can allow the hater to forget that the person is a person. Assigning pejoratives assists with this. This process leads to some of the most evil shit human beings get up to; rape, murder, violence, mutilations, genocides, driving people from their homes, disenfranchisement - people have rights, and when you cease to believe that they are people, they have no more rights. With a famous person, and especially a politician, it is easy to come to the belief that they are the personality they put forth. And when they have a skin color to which you object, then that becomes a lens for hatred. Completely unacceptable, stupid, wrong, nasty, evil behavior, in all of its forms.
I'm not bagging on Republicans in general right now, because there's been some aisle crossing; I'm not picking on anyone except for those supporting and voting for John McCain. If you are a McCain supporter for some other reason than this one, you should know that you are associated with these ignorant racist scumfucks, whether you like it or not. They may not be most of you - or they may be, I don't know. Racism tends to run a spectrum, from the Klansman down to the "harmless" armchair racist who never says a word out loud, but who would never give a black man a chance to be President, either. So it's everywhere, and prevalent among McCain supporters. If you do not think that you identify with what I have described, then I would advise you to watch your step, goose- or otherwise, because you cannot continually associate with racism and hatred without getting some on you. If you hang out with a group of guys because you like shaving your head or wearing red armbands, eventually others will come to refer to you as what you are.
A stupid, ugly, ignorant, racist monster. But, you know, do what you want. It's your vote.